Get your own Free Home Page Disclaimer: Star Trek Voyager and its characters are the property of Paramount. This story is not meant to infringe upon the trademarks or copyrights of Paramount.
Please do not post or distribute this story without the author's permission.
******
"Bottle of champagne, a moonlight sail on Lake George, how's that sound?"
"Like something worth living for."
Yes, it certainly did, Chakotay thought, grinning, as he hurried to change out of his uniform and into comfortable civilian clothes for his appointment with Kathryn.
Appointment? Or was it a date?
He took the time to mull that thought over for a moment. It wasn't unusual for the two of them to get together socially. They dined together fairly often, going over reports and other business matters during dinner. They usually attended shipboard social functions together and had gotten together for activities during the occasional shore leave. But champagne and moonlight. That seemed to put this appointment in a different perspective.
Kathryn had decided to take an evening to revel in life and she wanted him included in her celebration. There had been suggestions from several of the crew members that a 'welcome back' party be held for her, but she made it known that she did not want such a gathering. This made her invitation to Chakotay undoubtedly different.
It made Chakotay decidedly happy.
The door chime sounded as Chakotay shrugged a loose shirt over his sleeveless top. "Come in."
She stood at the entrance to his quarters attired in similar comfortable clothing. She had a basket over one arm and a bottle of champagne in her hand, which she presented to him.
"The real thing, too," he said. "Do I even want to ask where you managed to find this?"
"I'm not giving up my secret sources that easily," she replied. "Are you ready?"
At his nod she grabbed his arm and escorted him out the door. "Let's go! I can't wait to get on the water."
******
Champagne glass in one hand, the other trailing lazily through the water, Kathryn leaned back into the bow of the small sailboat. Chakotay sat a few feet away, giving an occasional prod to the rudder as the boat drifted in the warm breeze and made it's way across the lake, which reflected the starry night like a rippling black mirror.
"Enjoying life?" Chakotay asked, smiling at a very contented looking Kathryn.
"Umhmm," she murmured, taking a sip of her champagne.
"I guess I'll have to be satisfied with being Captain of this ship then," he gave a mock sigh.
"Excuse me, *commander*?" She enunciated the title and splashed a little water at him.
He had the gall to splash her back, which precipitated an all out war, with the tiny sailboat coming dangerously close to overturning. It was only when Chakotay moved in and dumped his cup filled with water over her head that Kathryn held up her hands in surrender and leaned back to out her dripping hair.
Then she gave a small cry and leaned a bit out of the boat. "Damn. I dropped my cup overboard during our fight. It's floating right over there but I can't quite reach it."
He moved to her side. "Where is it?"
"It's right over there. You'll have to stretch a bit but you should be able to grab it."
He smiled at her. "Can't have you not enjoying your champagne." He braced one hand against the side of the boat and leaned out over the water.
In one smooth movement Kathryn grabbed him by the legs and tipped him overboard.
To his credit, after a rather large splash, he broke the water cleanly on the way back up instead of coming up sputtering.
Kathryn stood with her hands on her hips and a twinkle in her eyes. "Lake George is my holodeck program. I'm the captain of this ship."
He threw his head back in laughter while treading water. Reaching a hand out to her, he asked, "Help me back into the boat?"
She moved as far out of his reach as possible. "No way. That would get me a dunking too!"
"Actually, the water's quite nice. Want to join me for a swim?"
She considered. Then she cried, "Race you to the beach!", and executed a clean dive from the boat, setting out for the nearby shoreline in a rapid crawl.
Under normal circumstance, Chakotay would have beat her in a swimming race simply by virtue of his size and strength, but she had caught him by surprise and her clothes, while not aquatic in nature, did not hamper her strokes as much as his did.
It was not until her feet hit bottom in about two feet of water that he caught up with her. As she moved to stand up he grabbed her legs in a tackle and she went down into the surf.
She rolled over onto her back, half in and half out of the water. "I won! You're a cheater!"
"You're not out of the water yet. You said 'race you to the *beach*'."
As Kathryn started to move out of the water backwards using her hands and feet he jumped astride her. He was on his knees with hands planted on either side of her shoulders, which halted her crawl. Still, determined, she started to wriggle her shoulders and hips to inch up the wet sand.
Chakotay placed his elbows above her shoulders and braced himself with his forearms, still balanced on his knees. Drops of water fell off of him to land in her face.
She looked up at him laughing. His hair was wet, his eyes were shining with amusement and deviltry and his mouth...was so close to her own. She looked at his mouth, considering for a moment that it would take only a hand against his head to coax it to her own. She stopped laughing and met his eyes again.
The mirth in his eyes was gone, to be replaced by something that seemed to dangerously mirror her own thoughts at the moment.
"Chakotay..."
There was a plea in her tone but it was of uncertainty, rather than of invitation. "I'm sorry," he said, moving from over top of her.
"No...don't be." She sat up and placed a hand on his shoulder.
He held her gaze for a few seconds, then the moment seemed to be lost. "You've got a beach full of sand in your hair, you'd better rinse it out. Did you want to call it a night or should we dry off in front of a bonfire?"
"A fire would be nice. Why don't you call one up while I rinse out this sand."
She waded into the water, lost in thought. After most of the sand had been rinsed out of her hair and clothing, she walked along the beach until she came to the spot where she had left her basket and pulled out a couple of blankets. Stripping down to her T-shirt and undergarments and wrapping a blanket around her, she brought the other one over to Chakotay.
He had called up a cheery bonfire from the computer, which was surrounded by huge pieces of driftwood. He had taken off his shirts and sat dressed only in his trousers, leaning up against a piece of wood and staring into the fire. She tossed him a blanket and sat down beside him, not quite touching him.
They were quiet for a few moments, then she spoke.
"Coming so close to dying caused me to realize a few things. One of those things was how much I've come to appreciate having you along on this journey. Chakotay, I can't tell you how much I value you as a friend and a colleague. If I didn't have your support and your trust and your counsel I don't know if I would have been able to deal so well with a lot of incidents that have happened on this trip so far."
"You would have had Tuvok's counsel," he remarked, honestly.
"Tuvok is a good friend," she agreed. "But as much as he attempts to recognize human emotions when discussing a concern with me, it's just not the same as when I'm sorting out a problem with someone who also has the capacity to feel those emotions. Like you. You've become my best friend, Chakotay."
He smiled at her and pulled her to him with a one-armed hug. To his surprise, before he could remove his arm, she placed her head on his shoulder and relaxed against his side.
After letting out a deep breath that he hoped she didn't hear, he said, "And you don't want anything to ruin that friendship."
"No. But...but I realized something about that, about our relationship, during my experience. I know it was a hallucination engineered by the alien, but I was standing beside you while you were trying to revive me after the shuttlecraft accident. You were crying out my name and the pain on your face as you fought to save me from dying was more than anguish felt at the thought of losing your captain or your friend."
"That part wasn't a hallucination." Chakotay interrupted softly.
He couldn't see her face to see her soft smile. "Seeing the depth of your emotion made me ache. Not only at the thought of you hurting but also at the thought that if I was really dead - and for all I knew at that time it was a possibility - I may have missed out on something in life. That something was a relationship with you, something more than just friendship."
"But you're still uncertain."
"Yes." She sighed. "I've admitted to myself that I have feelings for you. But I'm a bit frightened by what could happen if we let those feelings develop and things didn't work out. We could be on this journey for decades to come, and that's a long time to be living in close quarters with someone you've had a failed relationship with."
"Kathryn, you will always be my friend. Since the day I met you I've always had a deep respect for you and nothing will ever change that. My life would be a happy one just knowing that I could live out those decades with you as my friend...or more."
She sat up to look into his eyes. "I can't make you any promises. I have to take things slow. But I couldn't hide these feelings from you. I don't want to risk missing out on what we might find together."
Slowly, she reached out and placed a hand on his cheek. She planted a soft kiss on the other side of his face and then touched her cheek to his.
He drew her close against his chest and returned her offering with a brush of a kiss against her cheek. He put his forehead against hers and they sat in silence for some time, just holding each other. They Kathryn drew back and ran her fingers up into his hair, bringing his mouth down to hers.
His kiss was gentle and a match for the rhythm of her own. He met her softly, with no demand, yet she could sense the passion that simmered beneath the innocent meeting. She also felt a connection, a union of sorts between them. It was not a familiar sensation, not something she had felt with any lover in the past.
She knew that she could quite willing take things further that night and not regret it in the morning. Not regret it for weeks, for months, to come. But the possibility of regretting it later on down the road forced her to softly ease out of the kiss. She was not willing to take things too far at the outset, as she knew from the feelings welling up inside of her that she wanted the road she and Chakotay travelled to be a long one.
"Something worth living for," she told him, smiling.
| Back to Tricorder Readings | Send feedback to: Vicki Firth |
Copyright 1997 |
|
This page hosted by Get your own Free Home Page